The changing legal landscape is raising questions for public colleges about how to talk to students about reproductive health care options and creating hesitancy among students about whether they can trust their universities’ health centers.
Kate McGee
Kate McGee is an Austin-based enterprise and investigative reporter. She joined the Tribune in October 2020 as a higher education reporter. She was a three-time finalist for the Education Writers Association's Beat Reporter of the Year award, winning the title in 2024. She was also a Livingston Award finalist for her coverage of the University of Texas at Austin. Before the Tribune, she spent nearly a decade as a reporter at public radio stations nationwide, including in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Austin; Reno, Nevada; and New York. Kate was born in New York City and primarily raised in New Jersey. She earned her bachelor's degree from Fordham University.
Posted in
Health care
UT-Dallas is investigating a professor’s homophobic tweet with misinformation about monkeypox
LGBTQ students want the university to take “substantive action” against the computer science professor for his tweet, which included misinformation about how the monkeypox virus spreads.
Posted in
Higher Education
Former UT-Brownsville President Juliet García to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom
García served as the president of the University of Texas at Brownsville until it merged with the University of Texas-Pan American to become the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is the first Mexican American woman to lead a college or university in the United States.
Posted in
Uvalde school shooting
Texas safety officials will begin “random intruder detection audits” of schools in September
Texas School Safety Center officials said they will alert districts and local law enforcement of the audits, where trained staff will try to find access points into school buildings. But school campuses will not be informed ahead of time.
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Health care
Texas GOP platform calls for ban on teaching “sexual matters,” while requiring students to learn about “dignity of the preborn human”
The party planks specify what the Texas GOP believes students should and should not be taught in the classroom about gender and sex, signaling further shifts to the right. Critics say such policies would be harmful and discriminatory.
Posted in
Public Education
Texas rejects more rigorous teacher certification exam
The Educative Teacher Performance Assessment was designed to better prepare new teachers, but faced pushback from people who thought it would create barriers for people of color to enter the profession.
Posted in
Public Education
Texas State Board of Education rejects conservative-backed Heritage Classical Academy charter school for third time
Two Republicans joined Democrats to veto the charter school application, including a Republican board member who lost reelection to a candidate endorsed by a PAC with financial ties to Heritage’s board chair.
Posted in
Texas 2022 Elections
Texas gubernatorial race between Abbott and O’Rourke tightens, according to first poll since Uvalde shooting
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows that Gov. Greg Abbott’s 15-point lead has shrunk to 5 points over Beto O’Rourke as more Texas voters now say gun policies are a top priority.
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Higher Education
University of Texas selects new director — and new name — for its conservative institute
The University of Texas at Austin selected Justin Dyer to run The Civitas Institute, formerly referred to as the Liberty Institute. The center raised concerns among faculty after The Texas Tribune reported UT-Austin worked with conservative donors and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to bring the institute to the flagship UT campus.
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Higher Education
Settlement with conservative free speech group forces University of Houston to keep amended anti-harassment policy
The conservative group Speech First argued that the anti-discrimination policy restricting “offensive speech about personal characteristics such race, ethnicity or gender” violates students’ First Amendment rights. The university agreed to keep its amended policy as part of a settlement.
